SHAME & SMELLS: Otakon 2009 Part 3

by Matthew Hawkins

Time for another panel! Was interested in “Anime’s Crazies Deaths” but the line for it was way too long for my tastes, yet the one for “The Secret Life of Mega Man” appeared far more reasonable. Again, this is Mega Man we’re talking about; it’s been around for over twenty years, there’s been close to ten different iterations and spin-offs, so translation, a million things to talk about. But what was presented instead? A bunch of YouTube videos that everyone has seen a million times by now. Oh God. But again, I seemed to be the only person in that room who had a problem, whereas everyone else ate it all up like cotton candy.

But that was it, just a bunch of f’n videos. For whatever reason, I sat through them all, assuming that it was the precursor to some big conversation; you’d think with about four different so called Mega Man experts, they would want to talk about… you know… Mega Man? But once I heard “Okay, that about wraps it up.” I became super pissed; next was some stupid raffle drawing, which I could have not given a rat’s ass about, hence why I made my exit. On my way out, the Otakon staff person manning the door asked if I was just going to the bathroom or if I was not coming back. When I stated that I was done, he gave the signal for some dude who was waiting in standby… despite the fact that almost an hour had passed and that the panel was practically finished, you still had a very LONG line of people waiting for any dropouts to snatch their seat. The guy became super excited and rushed towards the door, but not without giving me this gigantic hug, and before I could stop myself, my gut reacted with “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” Everyone who witnessed this though I was a huge asshole.

Afterwards, I decided to stop by that wacky anime deaths panel; perhaps someone else had bowed up for whatever reason and now a seat was attainable. Once there, I the staff people manning its door if I could possibly sneak in, but was told that it had been cancelled. Not because the people who was supposed to run it didn’t show up, or due to some technical reason, but… get this: five minutes into the show, some very large woman as she was described, was completely disgusted by what she was witnessing. Enough to exit and file a complaint. Apparently, one of the deaths had questionable content… not due to violence, but sex. This woman even stated that she was so glad that her kids were not there to witness such an atrocity. So right then and there, the call was made to pull the plug. What? Never-mind the poor people who had patiently waited in line for all that time, you’re telling me that if one single person complains about a panel, the officials will shut everything down? It was a question that none of the staff people could answer, though they all agreed it was ridiculous, albeit in various indirect manners. Apparently, it was some dude’s call, who was conveniently not around. But yeah, what the hell.

Anyhow, back to me screaming at some kid, when conveying this exchange to Hilary, I was told that I did the absolute right then. It was then explained to me that personal space had become a serious issue at the show, enough to call for the banning of such times as FREE HUGS or GLOMP ME signs. When I noted that I had indeed seen zero free hugs signs at that point, but a few shirts that stated the same thing, it was pointed out that Otakon can’t force anyone to remove clothing and the such. But it’s also the main reason why yaoi paddles were also banned; you’d think that people would be mature enough to not randomly smack people in the asses, especially animu dorks who often get pushed around in the “real world”, but then again, whose crueler towards nerds more than other nerds?

Speaking of Hilary, here’s a pic of her with a neat little portrait of her by some pal, of her surfing on a leopard?

Oh, as noted previously, both her and Ada had the intense pleasure of attending that yuri drawing workshop which I’m lucky to have missed out on, or so I’ve heard. Here’s what Ms. Florido was able to produce during that time…

… Ada herself also came up with some amusing sketches, including experiments that asked what women would look like if they had square shaped tits instead of the usual round. Apparently, triangle ones simply looks like a woman’s public region. Unfortunately the pics came out poorly because of you know what.

Check these out: both Hilary and Ada got these handmade Ghost In The Shell pins by some random person who were just giving them out!

Here we have Skull Kid and Link who stopped by the table…

Always a personal favorite, Claire Redfield!

… I feel stupid for passing on Hilary’s insistence that I take a snapshot of the back of her jacket, with the cool logo and all, which looked pretty dead-on, since it was also a great chance for an ass shot.

Not too far away were two Leons (one’s a girl, natch) and an Ashley…

As was Bender!

Back onto the main floor; another popular costume was naturally Yoko…

These pink Spartans were a huge hit, and for good reason…

This guy as Strider was so awesome…

Another pleasant surprise was the high number of Talims floating around. Here’s just one of the maybe ten or so I encountered throughout the weekend…

Then you had these two…

Generally speaking, it’s always good in my book to address a cosplayer by their character’s name. And the more relatively obscure the character, the happier the person will be with how someone knows what they’re dressed as; this kid as Klona’s pal, after I asked for a picture, immediately went “See, I told you someone would recognize you!”

The Metal Gear crew, circa part 3, Snake Eater…

And Old Snake…

It’s always nice to see the classic represented, like Ranma 1/2…

Again, not a fan of the source material, but I’m assuming that someone out there is going to be interested in LittleBigPlanet cosplay…

More Resident Evil action; love Claire Redfield, but not a fan of her look in that CGI movie (that I started to watch for GSW, but totally lost interest)…

PC gamer characters had a decent presence at the show; there were countless numbers of Team Fortress 2 faces running around, but since I don’t play that game, never bothered to take any of their pictures. So instead, here we have Portal…

Pikachu m?nage ? trois….

Always happy to see some NiGHTS love…

Was equally happy to see that Sailor Moon appreciation is still in effect…

One could also find plenty of American super heroes as well, like Jean Grey and Logan here…

Personally, always been a big fan of the Phoenix costume myself (next to her X-Factor attire, which I have yet to see anyone do)…

Deadpool was also kind all over the place; there was a Chinese girl dressed up as him that everyone fell in love with, and didn’t get that one, but here’s two others…

No idea if this Iron Man costume is store bought or totally handmade, but hey, I love Iron Man…

Another definite favorite of mine, some woman as Hunter S Thompson!

Speaking of favorites, Soul Eater was all the rage this year…

… Sorry to be such a dude, but underboob for the win.

Time for yet another group shot, this time of assorted Zelda related faces…

… Love both the Midna and Tingle.

Hey, it’s Zero Suit Samus!

Not too sure who the girls are on either side, but in the middle was one bad-ass looking Star Wolf…

Hey dmauro, this pic of Meta Knight is just for you…

And wrapping this particular entry up, here we have a girl from Final Fantasy 7 and a girl from Final Fantasy 10, totally making out for everyone’s enjoyment…

… Believe it or not,

TO BE CONTINUED!

http://www.rockman-exe.com/ Ryouko

Head panelist of the Megaman panel here… uh, did you even read our panel description in the program guide? ^^; It fully explained what it would be about and what to expect. We are the same panelists from last year, and we did a full blown discussion and coverage of the entire Megaman genre LAST year. We did not want to just repeat ourselves this year, so we decided to go in a new direction.

I’m sorry if you were expecting something different and that you did not enjoy it. From the crowd reactions we thought it went over pretty well, and panel ops said it was very well received by the staff as well.

I guess you’ll know not to waste your time with us next year, and let someone else have your seat that really wanted to be in there.

tiesto

Great pics! I totally missed out on seeing the Skull Kid there, that was a cool costume, and the current game I’m playing is Majora’s Mask.

Hecxz

You should of came in 2008 to the Panel, because the Megaman Panel was the discussion of the series and talking about all the sagas and such. The Panel didn’t want to repeat itself, especially for those who saw us last year so they created a fun version. Too Bad you walked out on a chance to win the rare Mega Man 9 Press Kit that Capcom donated to us, we had a few raffle numbers called that no one claimed….oh well. If your interested, here’s last year panel, in HD, if not look it up on Youtube as “Otakon 2008 Megaman”

First off, thanks for taking the time to actually respond to what I had to say, despite all the vitriol that’s contained. Can’t blame you for being non-plussed, since I was rather harsh. Yet I still stand by my words.

I guess ultimately, anything I have to say is invalidated by the simple fact that, yes, I did in fact not bother to check out the programming guide. That being said though, who the hell cares if you went over the history and all that good stuff last time? Granted, not a whole lot has happened in the world of Mega Man in the past 12 months, but given the right mix of Q&A, I’m certain that things would have been at least a little different, along with how you simply shouldn’t assume that everyone in attendance was also from the year before.

Again, and I know this is a strong difference in opinion and philosophy here, but I can’t help but feel that showing a bunch of videos from one’s hard drive reeks of laziness to a certain extent. I have used videos in my presentations in the past, but always as talking points, and I think we all know that the average Otakon attendee has an opinion on everything! Also, when you have a bunch of experts on stage and such a meaty subject, it’s not foolish to expect SOME kind of dialogue, even if its among one’s self. Hell, talk about yourself, such as what it’s like to run a major fan site or do a fan comic, something!

But you are right, the audience loved it, hence why I know I’m in the minority. I also know from experience, whenever a con’s representatives takes a head count and the like, all they can really do is check the occupancy (which no offense, is something that every panel must have surely not struggled with, given the overall large numbers of attendees, period) and reaction. And considering how many of the vids were crowd pleasers, I’m certain you will all be back next year.

Though Ryouko, I guess you missed the part in which I noted that I left before the drawing, so who knows… maybe the kid that took my place got a ticket (you were giving them away to those who didn’t get on at the door) and won? Must admit, that’s a pretty sweet package that I never managed to get a hold of myself.

http://www.dmauro.com dmauro

Thanks for the MetaKnight photo, but it was the Iron Man that I liked the most. Which made me think, I could actually go to one of these things with my Tony Stark costume from last Halloween…

http://www.fort90.com Matt

Hey Dave, fyi, the New York Anime Fest is just a few months away, September, and super close by!

http://www.rockman-exe.com/ Ryouko

Hey

I appreciate your kind reply, and you do make some very valid points. We had planned to add in more discussions with the videos, but we simply did not have enough time. It seems like you have to be Naruto or Bleach to get a two hour time slot, or even a bigger panel room. I still don’t understand why they put us in a small room AGAIN this year, after we had to turn away people last year too due to capacity limits.

We actually did a lot of planning that you would only really notice if you were behind the scenes. For each video presented, I contacted the actual artists, and about 80% of what we showed were the high quality versions provided directly by them. We had also would have liked to show the new 16 minute video if the newest Megaman fan movie, but like we mentioned at the panel, things kind of fell through at the last minute with the director.

This year’s panel was meant to be a dedication to the fans of the genre, from a multimedia point of view. We had also planned to go into other ventures such as web comics, but once again we were foiled by time constraints. :/ One hour is just not nearly enough to cover a huge series like Megaman…

Thanks for taking my photo, btw. ^_^ I was the one in the spikey armor of Greiga from Megaman Battle Network 6, along with the two Netto cosplayers next to me. I appreciate it!

http://www.fort90.com Matt

Hello again Ryouko.

As someone who has spoken at more than his fair share of conventions, I can certainly sympathize with the issue of available space. If it means anything, while waiting in line to get in, I overheard someone saying: “I can’t believe they’re putting this in the small room… again.”

And kudos for both asking permission from the original creators of the videos and striving to get the best possible version, something that many others are not mindful of, or simply do not care about. So I certainly take back much of my comments when it comes to perceived laziness.

Time is always an issue as well, something I’m all too familiar with additionally. The idea of a multimedia oriented look at Mega Man fandom is actually quite sound, I guess it just sucks that time did not permit such an approach. Speaking as a cartoonist, I’ve always been interested in hearing from those that create comics based on characters that they didn’t create originally but simply grew up and love to death, along with all the perils and pitfalls that comes with such territory. Maybe next time?

Speaking again from experience, covering a lot of ground in a little bit of time is no easy task. It requires a lot of efficient planning and talking very fast! Anyhow, I’m in the process of downloading last year’s presentation and will give it a look next chance I get.

And no prob with the photo! Nice job on the costume; excellent detailing, and the colors were especially impressive. Also, thanks for the clarification… the original post has been updated.

http://www.freewebs.com/kira_sama17 kira

wow, this girl’s kissing scene is too cool.

Is this a costplay? Well I think so, there costumes are not so good to look at but still it is very attractive to look at.